hubiestubert:impaler: "She aspirated her stomach content, which clogged her airway," Mobley wrote in a trooper report posted online. No foul play is suspected....

"It's basically the PCP of alcohol," Mobley said. "You don't know what it's going to do to you or how it's going to affect you."

Sounds like this "PCP of alcohol" affected her exactly like one would expect alcohol to affect her. She didn't die from any OD, she died because she choked on her own vomit, something that happens all the time from good old regular alcohol.

robbiex0r:The Stealth Hippopotamus: The highest I ever got a homebrew is 14%. If you die from drinking 14% homebrew you are trying to die.

Me thinks distilling is involved.

Turbo yeasts will get you up to 20%... but it won't taste very good.

Out in the villages the usual method is to use Kool-Ade, sugar, water, and normal baking yeast. Normally this is allowed to ferment in a 5 gallon bucket kept near the Monitor or wood stove until it's ready to drink. Not sure what the alcohol levels get to, but when you drink a LOT of it, it still reaches the desired effect.

I have heard of some over-achievers using freeze-distillation to increase the alcohol levels though.

Fun trivia fact: Most of the dry villages in Alaska keep the yeast and Kool-Ade behind the counter with the cold medicines. They actually make people sign for it so they know who is buying yeast. But since the postal service has no issue with delivering yeast and packets of fruit-flavored drink mix, it's kind of a stop-gap solution at best.

rwfan:While the comparison is not a great one I think most of you are missing the point. What the officer is trying to say is the drinkers don't know the alcohol content of what they are drinking so sometimes they drink more alcohol than they realize.

This makes it different than a lot of beers how? Beer strength generally varies from 3% to 8% (with outliers above and below).

No, he is not saying it has an unknown strength, he's alluding to the fact that poorly distilled alcohol can contain alcohols other than ethanol that fark you up bad (which is more rare than fork-lore would have one believe). Yet the bad effect here is just a regular effect of regular ethanol.

Magorn:Homebrew subby or "hooch"? Home BREW requires a brewed beverage, this seems to be a DISTILLED one which makes it Hooch, Corn Likker, Potcheen, or 'Shine. And de fact that dat stuff'll kill you with a quickness, esepcially when made or aged wrong has been known for a long damn time. They don't call it "rotgut" for funsies ya know.

aged wrong? You mean, after not including the methanol and avoiding lead, anti-freeze and other contamination you expect the ethanol to break down? Have some faith in fark's favorite chemical. Of course, ageing at all is wrong for moonshine or vodak (vodak is said to be far easier and better to make).

Any Alaskan farkers who can take a stab at how many locals fell for this trooper's idiocy? Or is he just saying it avoid sweeping up cheechako's bodies?

impaler:rwfan: While the comparison is not a great one I think most of you are missing the point. What the officer is trying to say is the drinkers don't know the alcohol content of what they are drinking so sometimes they drink more alcohol than they realize.

This makes it different than a lot of beers how? Beer strength generally varies from 3% to 8% (with outliers above and below).

No, he is not saying it has an unknown strength, he's alluding to the fact that poorly distilled alcohol can contain alcohols other than ethanol that fark you up bad (which is more rare than fork-lore would have one believe). Yet the bad effect here is just a regular effect of regular ethanol.

If she went blind, he would have had a point.

What part of : "A 57-year-old Mountain Village woman died in her sleep Monday after drinking too much homemade liquor, according to Alaska State Troopers" isalluding to the fact that poorly distilled alcohol can contain alcohols other than ethanol. Sounds to me like they are saying she drank too much alcohol.

impaler:rwfan: While the comparison is not a great one I think most of you are missing the point. What the officer is trying to say is the drinkers don't know the alcohol content of what they are drinking so sometimes they drink more alcohol than they realize.

This makes it different than a lot of beers how? Beer strength generally varies from 3% to 8% (with outliers above and below).

Well, for starters, distilled spirits will have MUCH higher alcohol than the strongest beer. Erring on the alcohol content is more dangerous when in the ballpark of 40 or 100 proof than at 3-8% ABV.

No, he is not saying it has an unknown strength, he's alluding to the fact that poorly distilled alcohol can contain alcohols other than ethanol that fark you up bad (which is more rare than fork-lore would have one believe). Yet the bad effect here is just a regular effect of regular ethanol.

If she went blind, he would have had a point.

It could be elements of both. Once distilled, all of the volatile compounds are concentrated. With that, you have a stronger drink with chemicals in a concentration dangerous for consumption (acetone, for example). Either not dumping the heads and/or drinking too much too fast at high proof ethanol could lead to death.

Dubya's_Coke_Dealer:hubiestubert: impaler: "She aspirated her stomach content, which clogged her airway," Mobley wrote in a trooper report posted online. No foul play is suspected....

"It's basically the PCP of alcohol," Mobley said. "You don't know what it's going to do to you or how it's going to affect you."

Sounds like this "PCP of alcohol" affected her exactly like one would expect alcohol to affect her. She didn't die from any OD, she died because she choked on her own vomit, something that happens all the time from good old regular alcohol.

I am fermenting a second batch now and was planning on cracking open a bottle of the first batch tonight. I followed EdWort's original recipe on the first but I prefer to mix in some cranberry juice to it or make a snakebite. It's a little dry all by itself. Sure packs a punch though.

How the hell do you get apple juice cheaply and not have it be "blended" crap that is 90% grape juice? I am in Texas, not alot of apple orchards. I tried concentrated apple juice and what I got was.....well...bad. Got 4 gallons of it hidden around the house that i'm afraid to ever open again. I even tried freeze distilling it and after a few weeks I ended up with the most sour slushy in history.

Home distilled alcohol will kill you if you add something stupid to it to give it more kick or "smooth" out the flavour. Wood alcohol is a good example. It's poison. Antifreeze is another common additive to home made wines and spirits. Even Bart Simpson had the sense to know that was wrong.

If there are no contaminants (lead and other toxins from the equipment used to distill the alcohol, contaminants from the bottles or jugs used to store it or from recycled barrels that contained something highly toxic before being turned into a still), then the high alcohol content alone might do the job. Moonshine is often very high proof, ranging all the way up to 200 (maximum proof--pure alcohol).

Those are the three main killers:

adulterationcontaminationover-dose.

You might also be killed by something biological such as bacteria if you don't exercise due caution and careful hygienic practices. A nice warm vat of home-brewed beer or wine, even infected equipment or raw materials used to distill spirits, might kill you.

I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't get ergotism from grain used to make spirits. IIRC, this is caused by a type of mold that infects grains and which can cause hallucinations and death. It has been proposed as a possible contributor to legends of werewolves, vampires and other monsters because of the bizarre behavior, mental, and physical side-effects, it can cause in people poisoned with it.

In addition to these causes, there are certain vegetable materials which could be used to make alcohol which are toxic unless carefully processed. Few of them would be available in the developed world, but native peoples in South America, Africa and Asia might well use raw materials that create deadly cyanide compounds or worse.

OK. Just had a look at the article. She fell asleep while drunk and threw up. Basically she drowned or choked on her stomach contents.

That's another way that home-made alcohol can kill you.

But it would work just as well if you drank a big glass of water and took a couple or three sleeping pills. They say you can drown face down in an inch of water, but you don't even need that if your bronchial tubes are blocked and you are too unconscious to react.

How the hell do you get apple juice cheaply and not have it be "blended" crap that is 90% grape juice? I am in Texas, not alot of apple orchards. I tried concentrated apple juice and what I got was.....well...bad. Got 4 gallons of it hidden around the house that i'm afraid to ever open again. I even tried freeze distilling it and after a few weeks I ended up with the most sour slushy in history.

Watsur sekret?

Check out this link, and follow the instructions exactly. After that, you'll know what you like, and what you really like about it.

Home distilled alcohol will kill you if you add something stupid to it to give it more kick or "smooth" out the flavour. Wood alcohol is a good example. It's poison. Antifreeze is another common additive to home made wines and spirits. Even Bart Simpson had the sense to know that was wrong.

If there are no contaminants (lead and other toxins from the equipment used to distill the alcohol, contaminants from the bottles or jugs used to store it or from recycled barrels that contained something highly toxic before being turned into a still), then the high alcohol content alone might do the job. Moonshine is often very high proof, ranging all the way up to 200 (maximum proof--pure alcohol).

Those are the three main killers:

adulterationcontaminationover-dose.

You might also be killed by something biological such as bacteria if you don't exercise due caution and careful hygienic practices. A nice warm vat of home-brewed beer or wine, even infected equipment or raw materials used to distill spirits, might kill you.

I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't get ergotism from grain used to make spirits. IIRC, this is caused by a type of mold that infects grains and which can cause hallucinations and death. It has been proposed as a possible contributor to legends of werewolves, vampires and other monsters because of the bizarre behavior, mental, and physical side-effects, it can cause in people poisoned with it.

In addition to these causes, there are certain vegetable materials which could be used to make alcohol which are toxic unless carefully processed. Few of them would be available in the developed world, but native peoples in South America, Africa and Asia might well use raw materials that create deadly cyanide compounds or worse.

Conclusion: home made is not always better.

Your whole post is pretty much crazy talk.

People aren't adding wood alcohol to their home made liquor - it's naturally made by the yeast during fermentation. Most of the heads being thrown out consists of wood alcohol. People die because they mess up the distillation process and wind up with too much methanol in the finished product.

The Stealth Hippopotamus:The highest I ever got a homebrew is 14%. If you die from drinking 14% homebrew you are trying to die.

Me thinks distilling is involved.

There are some yeast strains they claim can get up to 20%, and if you start freeze-distilling you might get it up to 30-35%. More likely it's moonshine (sugarjack sounds like): sugar, water and yeast. Nasty stuff but gets you drunk.

syberpud:There are some yeast strains they claim can get up to 20%, and if you start freeze-distilling you might get it up to 30-35%. More likely it's moonshine (sugarjack sounds like): sugar, water and yeast. Nasty stuff but gets you drunk.

How the hell do you get apple juice cheaply and not have it be "blended" crap that is 90% grape juice? I am in Texas, not alot of apple orchards. I tried concentrated apple juice and what I got was.....well...bad. Got 4 gallons of it hidden around the house that i'm afraid to ever open again. I even tried freeze distilling it and after a few weeks I ended up with the most sour slushy in history.

Watsur sekret?

You can buy preservative-free 100% apple juice at Costco. 6 gal for like 5 bucks.

Having received the entirety of my distillation knowledge from "moonshiners" I'm going to ask anyway, are you not supposed to dispose of the first bit of the run because it's poisonous or something? Also, how do you know when it has changed from poison to sweet, sweet shine?

/I know this isn't what killed her but I bet it adds to that nice round 60% death toll

The Homer Tax:orclover: The Stealth Hippopotamus: And now for a little brewing porn

[img706.imageshack.us image 478x640]

There is two of my apple wines...

How the hell do you get apple juice cheaply and not have it be "blended" crap that is 90% grape juice? I am in Texas, not alot of apple orchards. I tried concentrated apple juice and what I got was.....well...bad. Got 4 gallons of it hidden around the house that i'm afraid to ever open again. I even tried freeze distilling it and after a few weeks I ended up with the most sour slushy in history.

Watsur sekret?

You can buy preservative-free 100% apple juice at Costco. 6 gal for like 5 bucks.

Not around here you cant. 100% juice blend. Tried 5 different brands of stores in the area. Two actually sold pure apple juice by the 1/2 gallon and gallon. Whole Foods was selling at about $13 a gallon. Centeral market had cider at about $8 a gallon in a glass jug which was the cheapest. I wanted to "make cider", not buy cider. Pretty depressing.

rwfan:While the comparison is not a great one I think most of you are missing the point. What the officer is trying to say is the drinkers don't know the alcohol content of what they are drinking so sometimes they drink more alcohol than they realize. That can lead to accidental death. Just like not knowing the strength of street drugs can lead to accidental overdose.

A hygrometer is $5 from Midwest Supplies and tells you your alcohol content. They even make fancy-boots $60 digital ones a homebrewer might get for her birthday from a concerned Grandma who worries she might not realize how strong her latest IPA is or a supportive Nana who is dearly hoping for an 11%+ ABV bourbon-casked winter lager to serve at the Christmas party, as the case may be. (I come from a family of Irish-German barmaids and alewives.)

Not knowing your ABV is like bringing your restored classic car to a show and not knowing the engine displacement. A high ABV is something to brag about, so any 'brewer with any sense of community or pride would take special pains to know, not just for the street cred, but also to gauge whether successive batches were improving at all. This isn't just a case of some lady pulling a Hendrix with iffy beer or, more likely, moonshine, but the authorities not caring to tell the difference between sketchy homebrewers just in it for booze n' lulz and proud adherents to one of humanity's most time-honored traditions.

In related news, looks like I can be a beer-snob about any-effing-thing...

Actually, in response to brantgoose's post above (on mobile, don't want to quote a wall-o-text), unless you're in a lab with access to a bunch of high-tech stuff, it's impossible to distill ethanol past 190 proof. Has to do with the boiling point of pure ethanol actually being a little higher than 95% ethanol and 5% water.

And home-distilled hooch is not nearly as dangerous as people would lead you to believe. It would be really simple to make, allegedly. Age it with some wood chips to absorb the fusel oils, and you should be good to go. In theory.

Well obviously, they should arrest everyone and put them in jail for eleventy-bajillion years. It would be immoral to legalize it, so let's just throw money at it by hiring a bunch of cops who have a vested interest in perpetually chasing shadows and ruining lives over so.etching that the rest of the entire world uses on a regular basis.... fark, I need a drink.

It will likely have the opposite effect if you took enough to heavily trip. Most dissociatives with long-lasting effects will make it difficult for you to urinate under high dosages. Not impossible, but you may have to focus heavily and it may take up to 15-30 minutes just to take a leak.

Ohlookabutterfly:Having received the entirety of my distillation knowledge from "moonshiners" I'm going to ask anyway, are you not supposed to dispose of the first bit of the run because it's poisonous or something? Also, how do you know when it has changed from poison to sweet, sweet shine?

/I know this isn't what killed her but I bet it adds to that nice round 60% death toll

You're going to have a bit more methanol in the "forelegs", or the opening salvo of the run. It depends on your mash (the liquid you're distilling) as to what the quantity's going to be.

A lot depends on your distillation method, as well. Using a still will minimize fusel oil (bad alcohol), and a reflux still will eliminate them almost entirely. Freeze-distillation will remove none of them.

The antidote for methanol poisoning is ethanol.

Assuming clean fermentation and distillation procedures were followed, home-distilled liquor should be safe.

There's a distinct difference in the aroma of the forelegs and middle of the run, which is when the distiller knows to start collecting.